Women have spent a huge part of the past—in the U.S. and nearly everywhere else—living under a slanted seesaw. For centuries, women have been prohibited from learning how to read, attending university, voting, and entering the workplace. They’ve been treated like lower caste members within their own marriages, expected to “honor and obey”52 their husbands and to endure marital physical abuse that for a long time was largely considered tolerable (and legal) behavior. Women have suffered at the hands of cultural norms that believed “boys will be boys” and that accepted a certain level of sexual
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